Bahia Insomnia

The Bahia Insomnia series portrays daily life in the Brazilian state of Bahia, but at the same time introduces an imaginary land which you dream up during long nights when dreaming is the one thing that you fail to do, and open-eyed half-a-sleep you watch the shadows on your bedroom walls. The photographs in the series were taken in January and February 2020 in the region of Reconcavo Bahiano, which spreads out along the largest Brasilian bay of Baia de Todos os Santos. Far away from the lights of Copacabana and the Sugar Loaf, Brasil is different here; slower, quieter, but equally wild and rough. Its center is Salvador, the first capital of Brasil and one of the oldest cities founded by Europeans in America. The land of the goddess Yemanjá and of Candomblé rituals, but also the land of the Catholic church, the largest center of slave trade in world’s history and the last place in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery, a land fighting deep poverty and the ever burning sun.